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“Who says I don’t want my own baby?”
He pauses for a moment to let my words sink into my own brain. “I believe you said that, Ava.”
“I might not want a baby in advance of having one, but once I did, don’t think I’m going to hand it over. I don’t like Buttface, but I wouldn’t let you take him either.”
I actually love Buttface more than anybody should, but obviously I’m not going to admit that and undermine my entire argument.
“I bought you…”
“I boughtyou,” I reply, sitting up, as if that’s going to help the situation when I am next to a Leonid many times my size. He could destroy me with one casual swipe of his paw if he wanted to. I am very well aware of his power and strength, even though he is not trying to make a show of either.
“And I have agreed to help you with what you need. I am willing to stay here and help you on this farm of yours, Ava. Before I leave, I will ensure that your fences are secured, your home restored. You will get everything from me that you paid for. All I ask is one baby.”
I let out a laugh, because he is just being so absolutely logical in the way males of many species can be. He’s not thinking about the emotional ramifications of any of this. He has a problem, and he has laid out a course of action to solve it.
The sex was hot. Really fucking hot. And the truth is, I have to be practical too. I need his help. I can’t let him go. I have no intention of giving him my firstborn, but for today, and tonight, I think we can come to a sort of uneasy truce.
4
Ava
“What’s so wrong with Leonid females then?”
We are out in the fields that the Growlers dug up, raking already rotting produce back into the soil where it will have a chance to break down and spread its nutrients back into the Earth. I lost a lot of crops to that infestation, so many it’s going to be a lean winter.
The sun my asteroid orbits is a decent sun. A good sun. If there were any proper planets here, they’d probably be just as good as Earth. But instead of a planet, there’s a dense asteroid belt that progresses through space in as orderly a fashion as groceries on a checkout line. I know what that is, because my grandmother told me stories her grandmother had told her, about ancient humans and their funny ways of surviving the little world we started on.
I’d like to see Earth one day, I think. It’s a long way from here, and I can’t afford hyperspatial travel, and a lot of people say it’s been blown up, but they say that about a lot of things. Truth is, there’re now more humans spread across the deepest reaches of space than ever existed on planet Earth. What used to be the cradle of life for our kind is now nothing more than a discarded plaything.
Azlan sighs and leans against his rake, giving me a look that says he is somewhat tired of my many questions, but will indulge me, nevertheless.
“Do you really want to know? Because what I have to tell you cannot be un-heard.”
“Sure, I want to know,” I say with all the confidence of someone who has absolutely no idea what they’re about to hear.
“Leonidesses are not monogamous. They sleep with the most dominant male, and when new males become dominant, they will sometimes kill young cubs to bring females into season…” He trails off. “I do not want to create a life subject to those rules. I want to seed my strength into a newer, freer creature.”
“And you think they’ll accept this baby, this theoretical Leonid-human hybrid?”
“He will be my son.”
“Oh. And it will be a male.” I laugh, because if you don’t laugh, you cry. “You know, I could just as easily have a girl.”
“Then we would try again.”
“And if we keep having girl after girl?”
“Hm.” He frowns for a moment. “The odds are not in favor of that scenario.”
“Fate doesn’t care what the odds are, in my experience. Odds are irrelevant. Fifty percent, five percent, it doesn’t matter. What happens, happens.”
“You sound like someone who has played the odds and lost.”
“More often than you can imagine.”
“Well, Ava,” he says with a sexy Leonid grin. “It’s about time you won.”
He’s so confident, and there’s something deeply seductive about that confidence. In the short time we have been together, Azlan has followed through on absolutely every promise he has made to me. I’m starting to think that perhaps he is right. Perhaps I would enjoy having his babies. Maybe there’s a future with him I never dared believe I could have. I am so used to solitude. It’s hard to adjust to the idea of family.
